By Antoine Lambroschini (AFP) – 1 day ago
MOSCOW — Russian activists pressed ahead with plans to stage a banned rock concert on Sunday to rally opposition to routing a highway through a forest, despite worries that police would disperse the gathering.
Authorities earlier in the day detained one of the concert's main organisers as several unknown assailants attacked vehicles carrying musical equipment for the event.
Police also said they would not let any music amplifying equipment onto Pushkinskaya Square in the heart of Moscow, activists said.
Mikhail Shneider of the opposition movement Solidarnost was detained during a smaller protest in Moscow earlier in the day, his colleagues said.
"Mikhail Shneider's detention makes one think about a possible provocation," leading rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryov said.
"We know that authorities are very concerned about this rally, they even forbade us to hold a concert there," he said on the popular Echo of Moscow radio station.
Police detained Ponomaryov near the square as the rally was about to begin, the radio said.
Along with former government minister Boris Nemtsov, Shneider was one of around 20 activists detained earlier as they tried to carry a Russian banner along a central street to celebrate the official Flag Day holiday.
Another activist said unknown assailants had sought to prevent the musical equipment from getting to the site of the rally.
"Several bikers in black outfits and motorcycle helmets, their faces hidden, surrounded two Gazelle trucks carrying sound equipment for the event," said Pyotr Verzilov, an activist with art collective Voina, or War.
"They jumped off their motorbikes and started trying to pierce the vehicles' tyres with iron rods," Verzilov said on Echo of Moscow, adding the drivers managed to chase the attackers away.
As of 1045 GMT, Pushkinskaya Square was cordonned off and dozens of buses with OMON riot police were stationed along its perimeter, AFP correspondents reported.
Activist Mikhail Kriger told the radio station that police would not let the organisers bring any sound amplifying equipment except loudspeakers into the square.
"Therefore the very idea of not only the concert but the protest as a whole is being undermined," Kriger said.
Police say the opposition have received permission to stage a three-hour protest set to begin at 1300 GMT, but not a concert and opposition activists say Moscow authorities have told them that they will not allow the concert to go ahead.
Police spokesman Anatoly Lastovetsky told AFP that around 400 policemen were expected to enforce order.
The concert's aim is to buttress efforts by environmental activists to oppose the construction of a highway through Khimki forest outside Moscow, which has become a symbol for Russians fighting for their rights.
Authorities have in the past used force to disperse anti-government protests in Moscow, even though the country's opposition is weak and fragmented and its protests usually do not attract a lot of sympathisers.
Organisers however said they expected that some 1,000 people would turn up at the protest at which several popular musicians, including Yury Shevchuk, lead singer of the popular rock band DDT who is openly critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, are expected to perform.
Shevchuk in May openly challenged Vladimir Putin, considered Russia's paramount leader, telling him at a meeting Russia was being ruled by "dukes and princes with sirens on their cars" and demonstrations are broken up by
"repressive" security services.
"Today the Khimki forest embodies the fight of ordinary people against bureaucratic genocide which we all feel," Shevchuk said in comments posted on Solidarnost's website.
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Tokyo Police Club is coming to Halifax. I bet that concert would be fun as heck.
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